QCP Naked Analysis: The Industry Truth Behind Bitdeer's Bitcoin Liquidation

Bitdeer has liquidated all Bitcoin holdings. As a leading mining company, this firm gradually accelerated its sell-off from a peak of 2,400 BTC in November last year, completing the liquidation by mid-February, and now maintains a balanced daily production and sales pace. This decision comes at a time when the company’s financial performance appears strong—Q4 2025 revenue reached $2.248 billion, up 226% year-over-year; net profit was $70.5 million; total hash rate stood at 71.0 EH/s, a 229% increase from last year; miner efficiency improved from 30.4 J/TH to 17.9 J/TH. The company’s financial statements clearly show a record-breaking hash rate scale, yet it is simultaneously clearing its crypto assets reserves. To understand this move, one must return to a fundamental fact long hidden in the market.

Crypto Holdings Have Never Been Standard for Mining Companies

Essentially, Bitdeer is not an institution accumulating crypto assets out of conviction. In its early years, the company followed the simplest mining logic—mine, sell, cash out. To it, Bitcoin is not an asset but a product. Only in recent years, with narratives like MicroStrategy’s hoarding, has the valuation logic of mining companies been reshaped, prompting Bitdeer to temporarily join the hoarding camp. Such trend-following is common across the industry, but few can truly stick to it.

Research firm Messari analyst Tom Dunleavy’s data shows that from January to November 2025, ten major publicly listed mining companies—Core Scientific, Riot, Marathon, Hut 8, and others—mined about 40,700 BTC but sold approximately 40,300 BTC, with a sales ratio close to 99%. In other words, these companies never truly accumulated. This number reveals a fundamental industry logic: mining firms are primarily energy arbitrage operators. Bitcoin is a tool to convert cheap electricity into cash flow, not a long-term asset on the balance sheet.

The reason the market once believed in the hoarding story is partly due to the sustained rise in BTC prices, which masked reality—when assets appreciate, selling becomes a matter of attitude; when prices fall below mining costs, selling becomes a survival instinct. Bitdeer’s liquidation is not a betrayal of faith but a return to essence. It should not be interpreted as a bearish signal for Bitcoin; Wu Jihan himself stated on social media that zero positions do not mean Bitcoin will forever remain zero. But this liquidation did not generate profits to support routine operations; instead, it became the startup capital for the company’s transformation. That brief hoarding period was just a chapter in the industry’s collective narrative to capital markets.

Triple Pressures Converge: How Cold Is the Winter for Miners?

Recognizing that crypto holdings are a minority behavior helps clarify the current predicament of mining companies. The industry is facing three concurrent and reinforcing constraints.

First is cost pressure after the halving. The 2024 Bitcoin halving cut block rewards in half, directly reducing miners’ output per unit, but electricity costs, equipment depreciation, and maintenance expenses remain unchanged. Many mining machines are now unprofitable at current BTC prices, creating a dilemma of running at a loss or wasting resources by shutting down. Worse, miners’ continued sale of newly mined BTC exerts structural downward pressure on prices. As prices fall, miners need to sell more to maintain cash flow; more sales make price rebounds harder, forming a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop.

Second are glaring figures in financial reports. Reviewing the annual reports of 2025, almost all show a pattern: revenue increases but losses also grow. Marathon’s revenue rose from $6.56 billion to $9.07 billion, but net loss hit $1.31 billion, compared to a profit of $541 million last year. Hut 8’s revenue increased from $1.62 billion to $2.35 billion, but net profit shifted from $331 million profit to a $248 million loss. TeraWulf’s annual revenue grew from $1.4 billion to $1.69 billion, yet its Q4 quarterly loss widened from $0.21 per share to $1.66 per share. This phenomenon of rising revenue but increasing losses is seen across many leading firms, indicating a structural industry cycle squeeze rather than management issues. The book value of crypto holdings fluctuates directly in financial results, making the financials look particularly poor. Yet, many companies are still engaged in debt refinancing and transformation plays: Hut 8 launched a $10 billion financing plan, reached a $4 billion loan agreement with Coinbase; Cipher completed three rounds of financing totaling up to $37.3 billion.

Finally, macroeconomic shifts. Trump’s global tariff hikes, ongoing geopolitical uncertainties, and risk asset pressures caused Bitcoin to briefly dip below $65,000. According to assessments by crypto analytics firms like QCP, Bitcoin’s price is well below the average mining cost. Prioritizing liquidity over hoarding is no longer a strategic choice but a practical constraint. Bitdeer’s proactive liquidation and Cango’s partial BTC sales to support operations outline the industry’s risk-avoidance profile.

Surviving Under the Shadow of Death: The Time Dilemma of Transformation Betting

Faced with these three converging pressures, the only way out for miners is to transform: convert their Bitcoin mining infrastructure assets into new revenue streams. Artificial intelligence and high-performance computing have become new bets for the industry.

The logic is straightforward. Miners hold large amounts of long-term, low-cost electricity contracts and scaled data center land—precisely the scarce resources needed for AI computing infrastructure. In theory, converting low-margin mining capacity into high-margin AI compute leasing sounds like a profitable trade. Bitdeer is actively expanding its own businesses like Sealminer, AI cloud services, and high-performance computing systems; Cipher rebranded from Mining to Digital, signaling a platform-oriented shift; many firms are locking in long-term low-cost power contracts to build structural defenses against energy costs. But actual progress remains much more conservative than the narrative suggests.

Take TeraWulf as an example: its HPC revenue in Q4 was only $9.7 million, less than a third of the total revenue of $58 million, and it declined sharply from Q3. Acquiring AI clients, signing contracts, ramping capacity—all take time—while debt interest and equity dilution are immediate. The outcome of this transformation gamble depends on whether new businesses can truly scale before debt maturities.

Interestingly, amid nearly 17% monthly BTC price declines, several miners’ stock prices rose. TeraWulf surged 31% in a month, Cipher up 8%, Hut 8 up 6%, Core Scientific roughly flat. This disconnect reflects a market re-pricing—long short positions in crypto mining stocks have historically been heavily shorted, and rising prices may partly result from short covering. More importantly, the market is beginning to see these companies as potential AI infrastructure operators rather than just Bitcoin price leverage tools. Future valuation logic may be fundamentally rewritten: it’s no longer about how much BTC they hold, but who controls the longest-term, cheapest power supply, who owns the most potential AI data centers, and who can survive the balance sheet test during the transition.

Epilogue

Mining companies have never been the most devout Bitcoin believers; they are the most rational participants in the industry. When mining is profitable, they mine; when narratives like hoarding support valuation, they hoard; when liquidation funds transformation, they sell without hesitation. This is the most basic business logic.

The next question is: once the AI/HPC transformation narrative is fully priced in by the capital markets, what will these companies use to support the next valuation cycle? If Bitcoin prices rebound by then but their transformation businesses are not yet mature, will those who have fully liquidated now reweave new hoarding stories? Cycles repeat, stories are always renewed. But in every winter, survival is always more important than faith.